Kanchanburi – day 343

Had a lazy and self-indulgent morning, just pottering around, watching a film and enjoying the view of the River Kwai from our raft room. Managed to drag ourselves away from our room to the rooftop restaurant and ordered ourselves a couple of mango smoothies as we flicked through the Thailand Lonely Planet book and checked emails as we continued to enjoy the view and quietness of the river. 
Leaving the guesthouse, we headed for the Thailand Burma Railway Museum that we had skipped the other day.Good job too as we spent nearly two hours looking around the exhibit. A mixture of information plaques, model scenes and recovered artefacts from PoW camps, the museum was incredibly moving and had both of us nearly in tears (Jayne more than me, obviously – I am a robot!). The drawings by prisoners that had been kept by their families and donated to the museum were incredibly detailed and the song that I used to whistle as a child (I knew it as the ‘work song’) was apparently composed at the PoW camps with the lyrics ‘bollocks to the Japanese’…

Feeling slightly emotional drained, we sat in the museum cafe, looking over the memorial cemetery, drinking our free coffee – it was comparable to tar! Even Jayne had to add sugar. Decided to go for a walk around the town and chose to follow the heritage walk which goes past all the original houses that were used during the PoW times to house visitors, generals and high ranking officers. The houses themselves were beautiful, boxed in on both sides by modern builds, you could almost miss them if it wasn’t for the information plaques that were positioned outside each one. Finishing the heritage walk we decided to just wander in and out of the back streets, going wherever the wind took us. Found a building being constructed with men sat on the iron girder as they were nailing in the wooden beams below, we walked past pet shops with puppies and kittens (took all our restraint not to buy every single one!) and we even stumbled across a market that wasn’t listed on any map. A bizarre animal was on display at the butchers counter – almost a cross between a large rat and a small goat… Maybe we should be more careful with what we order at the night markets!Back to the guesthouse via a lovely temple, although we didn’t go inside as neither of us were wearing shorts that covered our knees, so we just enjoyed the grounds and peeked inside from the bottom of the steps.We had decided earlier today to treat ourselves to a Thai massage as, in all the times we have been to Thailand, we have never had one. Both feeling a little nervous, we headed into the spa and got ready. They started by washing our feet – mine were scrubbed slightly more vigorously than Jayne’s, including the use of a nail brush. My only hope is that is was because I was wearing flip flops and not shoes! We then were taken to a room outback to begin. I have never enjoyed any of the traditional massages that I have had in the past. I think it is the feeling of someone touching you all over but any time I have had a massage I always get told to ‘relax’. Well, this one I loved! Not only did I get to keep all my clothes on (always a bonus!), my lady was like a tiny little, but incredibly effective, sledgehammer! She managed to work her fingers, elbows, knees and feet into every muscle. It even felt at one point that she was going to remove it from its ligament connecting it to my bones. Felt much more relaxed too as I was lying right next to Jayne and I could hear her toes, fingers and back crack with every movement – we all giggled so much! The women chatted away in Thai as they manipulated and twisted various limbs around. My woman even walked up and down my back which was amazing! Feeling far too short to be an hour massage, we were drinking sugary tea and feeling incredible – all for the insane price of 200 baht each (about £4.30).Headed straight over to the night market for dinner where we continued our ‘try anything that looks interesting’ approach, hoping that we didn’t end up with the rat goat meat we had seen early. Started with a very strange savoury/sweet pancake thing followed by some sausage with chilli sauce. We then got some noodles, red Thai curry and rice to eat back at the guesthouse with mincemeat parcels and sweet eggy pancakes for dessert. Everything was amazing except for the mincemeat parcels – a weird cross between a mince pie and a steamed dumpling, even Jayne didn’t want to finish them (if she won’t eat them, we know it’s bad!). 

Watched the ‘Inbetweeners 2’ during our feast and then packed up our bags ready for our early start tomorrow. 

Wednesday 14th September 2016